As impossibly large monsters go, Godzilla is pretty special. He weighs a gazillion kilograms and stands 108 metres tall, and if he had a taste for human flesh, according to a thoroughly entertaining informant who identifies himself as VSauce 3, the creature would need to eat 1 950 people every day – all of which suggests that he would not be a fun companion at your next church social. (It also suggests that Godzilla could not possibly exist, because a creature that big would immediately be crushed by its own weight: we all learnt about gravity at school, didn’t we?)

But here’s the thing: this time, Godzilla is on our side. As the scriptwriters tell it, a breeding pair of giant monsters have matured after gorging on nuclear radiation for years and now they’re running amok in Japan and the United States. So call in the army, right? Er, not good enough: it seems the military can’t do much because the creatures generate electromagnetic pulses that effectively disable electronic equipment – and that means fighters, missiles, ships and all the other toys that separate civilised nations from the Third World rabble. These irredeemably evil and unpleasant characters need to be tackled before they produce smaller but equally nasty offspring, and the only thing that can stop them is Godzilla. (The film opens at cinemas on 30 May. Watch the Godzilla movie trailer… )

Before we leave this, you might like to know about some research in the UK that reveals how ridiculously large sauropods such as Argentinosaurus huinculensis were able to move their vast bulk. If you’re thinking of going to see the movie, you might like to check out this Godzilla review by Pop Mech’s Carl Davis. Oh, and look out for our “Godzilla in real life” article in July’s Popular Mechanics – on sale from 23 June.